Tuesday, July 30, 2013

We’re approaching lack of a payday

Thursday
is the day the members of our General Assembly should be getting their pay for
the month of August.

But on account of the fact that Gov. Pat Quinn used his amendatory veto powers
to delete the money put aside in the budget to cover legislative salaries for
the year, they’re not getting paid.

ILLINOIS
COMPTROLLER JUDY Baar Topinka went so far last week as to make a formal
statement saying she doesn’t have the authority to cut checks for the General
Assembly’s 177 members – although she did strongly imply that she’d be more
than willing to pay them if a court were to order her to do so.

It’s
probably one of the rare occasions when a government officials WANTS to be sued
– irregardless of how a lawsuit would wind up making just about everybody look
foolish.

Of
course, nobody has come up with a lawsuit against the state. Because it’s one
of those things that would make somebody look incredibly stupid and selfish!

Quinn’s
motivation for not paying the legislators (and himself, technically) is that
the public officials don’t deserve compensation for as long as they fail to
come up with a plan to reform the way in which the state pays the cost of the
pension programs it oversees.

AS
OF MONDAY, there still isn’t a plan for covering the pension costs. And no
hints as to when a plan could be ready for legislative consideration.

Who
wants to be the person who sues to get paid even though significant work has
yet to be complete?

Although
the Capitol Fax newsletter has indicated that Illinois House Speaker Michael
Madigan, D-Chicago, has had his staff looking into ways that could force
legislators to get paid even without a resolution to the pension funding
problem.

Regardless,
the action that usually would be taking place now to ensure that paychecks that
won’t bounce come Thursday is NOT taking place. Legislators are not going to
get their monthly compensation.

SOME
OF THEM won’t be as impacted because they have other jobs or sources of income –
particularly those who are attorneys and are going to have to rely upon their
law firm legal fees to cover the cost of the groceries they consume and their
mortgage payments for the upcoming month.

But
there are those who actually live off the incomes. Some may have financial
problems crop up – just like other people who run into unexpected conflicts.

So
in that case, the next couple of weeks could turn out to be an educational
experience for our legislators.

Not
that they’re willing to say so themselves. I have contacted a few legislators
in recent days, and NONE of them are willing to comment in any form.

“I’M
NOT PUTTING myself in the middle of that,” state Rep. Thaddeus Jones, D-Calumet
City, said. He was the most eloquent. The others I spoke to had less to say –
as all are afraid of saying something that could offend the powers-that-be.

None
of them want to be the target of political payback once this issue gets
resolved, and the legislators wind up getting back pay to cover the cost of the
money they are being denied this week.

That’s
the flaw in the argument being made by some that Quinn acted in an
unconstitutional manner by altering the salaries of the General Assembly. He
really didn’t.

The
salaries on the books for the individual legislators remain the same. They’ll
get their money eventually – just like the state workers whose get gets delayed
every time the Legislature and the governor get into a political spat and can’t
put together a state budget by the July 1 beginning-of-the state fiscal year.

BESIDES,
THERE ALSO have been several occasions where the General Assembly uses the
backhanded maneuver of approving something, but then failing to provide funding
for it – thereby ensuring it won’t happen.

In
a sense, the governor has done the same to the legislators, who apparently can
now turn to the Credit Union 1 in Rantoul (just north of Champaign) to get
loans of up to half of their salaries to help them pay bills in coming weeks –
similar to how they help state employees on strike.

So
excuse me for not being too sympathetic to the legislators. Even though some
are trying to make the argument that Quinn is behaving irresponsibly – creating
a precedent for future governors to “strong-arm” the General Assembly to get
them to do anything.

“No
pay checks until you pass a measure restricting abortion so heavily that it
becomes next-to-impossible to obtain!,” they argue we’re going to hear someday.

THAT
MAY BE so. It is possible that some future political nit-wit would try
something arrogant like that.

Although
I’d argue that is the arrogance of the future public official, and not the
questionability of the tactic itself.

I
also have enough faith in the Illinois electorate to think that if a future
governor tried something like that, the public would be so repulsed that the
official would suffer severely.

Unlike
Quinn in this instance, who seems to be gaining tidbits of support for his
behavior in recent weeks!

I am a Chicago-area freelance writer who has reported on various political and legal beats. I wrote "Hispanic" issues columns for United Press International, observed up close the Statehouse Scene in Springfield, Ill., the Cook County Board in Chicago and municipal government in places like Calumet City, Ill., and Gary, Ind. For a time, I also wrote about agriculture. Trust me when I say the symbolic stench of partisan politics (particularly when directed against people due to their ethnicity) is far nastier than any odor that could come from a farm animal.